From: M Douglas McIlroy <m.douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other?
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 23:35:24 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAKH6PiUsk4zLsQNX2fhVpxrbA89RpzbyPBAL_yA7qnNExO8E1g@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
This pair of commands exemplifies a weakness in the way Unix evolved.
Although it was the product of a shared vision, It was not a
product-oriented project. Unix commands work well together, but they
don't necessarily work alike.
It would be nice if identifiable families of commands had similar user
interfaces. However, cron and at were written by different
individuals, apparently with somewhat different tastes. Unix folks
were close colleagues, but had no organized design committee.
Time specs in cron and at are markedly different. A more consequential
example is data-field specs (or lack thereof) in sort, join, cut, comm
and uniq. The various specs were recognized as "wildly incongruent" in
a BUG remak. However there was no impetus for unification. To
paraphrase John Cocke (speaking about Fortran): one must understand
that Unix commands are not a logical language. They are a natural
language--in the sense that they developed by organic evolution, not
"intelligent design".
Doug
next reply other threads:[~2020-12-09 4:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 49+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2020-12-09 4:35 M Douglas McIlroy [this message]
2020-12-09 15:40 ` Clem Cole
2020-12-09 15:46 ` Niklas Karlsson
2020-12-09 16:01 ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 16:11 ` Clem Cole
2020-12-09 17:05 ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 17:42 ` Dan Stromberg
2020-12-09 23:46 ` Nemo Nusquam
2020-12-14 20:28 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-14 22:23 ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-12-14 23:04 ` Andrew Hume
2020-12-14 23:59 ` Harald Arnesen
2020-12-17 4:08 ` John Cowan
2020-12-15 2:57 ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-15 3:05 ` Warner Losh
[not found] ` <CAC20D2PXZY9aWgDf-RknROs6JbKEUjzbQ2BRzfTgTR07pXni3g@mail.g mail.com>
2020-12-09 16:04 ` John Foust
2020-12-09 16:40 ` Warner Losh
2020-12-09 16:53 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-09 16:58 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-09 19:58 ` Dan Cross
2020-12-09 20:30 ` Will Senn
2020-12-13 1:07 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13 1:56 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13 2:58 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13 3:07 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13 16:49 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-12-13 19:06 ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? [ really linux and filesystems ] Jon Steinhart
2020-12-13 3:02 ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? Dan Cross
2020-12-09 23:22 ` Bakul Shah
2020-12-09 23:44 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-12-09 23:51 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-12-10 0:19 ` [TUHS] Cole's Slaw John Gilmore
2020-12-10 0:29 ` Larry McVoy
2020-12-10 0:53 ` Erik E. Fair
2020-12-10 3:10 ` George Michaelson
2020-12-12 21:11 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-10 1:49 ` John Cowan
2020-12-10 2:12 ` Jon Steinhart
2020-12-12 2:56 ` [TUHS] Were cron and at done at the same time? Or one before the other? Dave Horsfall
2020-12-12 19:10 ` scj
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2020-12-13 2:02 Noel Chiappa
2020-12-13 2:08 ` Clem Cole
2020-12-09 19:25 Noel Chiappa
2020-12-08 18:11 ron minnich
2020-12-08 18:51 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-12-08 19:05 ` Larry McVoy
2020-12-08 19:20 ` Michael Kjörling
2020-12-09 2:00 ` Dave Horsfall
2020-12-08 19:39 ` Clem Cole
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